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"Jlcross the empfy room which winter storms once filled " 



Copyright 1917 by Paull Hayden 



NANTUCKET 

THE WALK TO SURFSIDE 









You turn from Main to Pleasant Street 
And there the walk begins. 

* * * * 

Beside white houses tinged with moss 

Enfringed with hollyhocks 

And decked with brazen knockers — 
Beside gray houses dimmed with years 

Entwined with vines, 

Green shuttered, shingled, insignificant. 
The street leads on. 

And now the town departs. 
A corn field waves — 

The Old Mill stands beyond the right. 

A sudden gleam of water from the bay 
Paints blue an inch of space 
And disappears. 

The open moors have come! 

And air! 

Strong, salt, sea air! 

Air born beyond the broad Atlantic's rim 

And blown across three sweet broad miles 
Of earth all filled with essences of grass 
And pine. 

Out now along the gray, green way! 
Across the playground of the winds. 
Across the empty room which winter storms 

Once filled 
And towards the sea. 

Another mile. 

What sound is this? 

What taste of salt upon the lip? 

The sea! 

Lo there — the rising of the last sand dune. 
Its edge agleam with ribbon grass. 
And keeping to the last its guard 
Upon the view. 

©;.,,. .:::h70 

JUN 29 1917 



And there a gull — it is the sea — a white 
Gull flashino through the sun 
And whirling in an arc of faultless curve. 

And then the sound — I think there is no sound 

Like this — the everlasting endless boom of surf, 
The sound which on Creation's morn 

First followed that command, "let there be land," 
And will continue on till atom break 
From atom and Earth's day be done. 

Just here you reach the top — 

Behind, the moors stretch back, grey, still and free, 

And overhead more sky than ever spanned 

So small a spot, 

And underfoot real sand. 

And there, ahead, 

Blue sea! 

Just up the beach 

The history of last night's tide 

Is sketched in lines of drift. 
Another tide is starting in. 

Each wave leaves impress on the sand. 

A pebble from the coast of Spain, 

Some seaweed from an alien shore, 

A shell which only yesterday was resting 

In some cavern under sea 

And here a splinter from a derelict. 
1 he maddened gulls in shrill profanity 

Fly screaming back and forth 

Picking silvered fish from foam topped waves. 
In angry contradiction with the wind 
1 hey shriek their imprecations to the skies. 

Yet still the waves roll in. 
The sky is blue. 

The unchanged beach-miles stretch to right and left 
The moors await 
Subdued by day-end's calm 
And sweet with scent. 

* * * * 

At other times in other days 

The thought will come 

That even now the breeze which blows 

Across your face has crossed the moors; 
That 
Waiting yet beneath the sun, eternally 

At peace, the moors remain. 

The sea still sweeping at its gate. 

The winds still blowing strong 

And silence King. 

"Paull Hayjden 1916 



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